Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Staunton, December 11 --Russia and
Ukraine were in roughly the same situation with regard to civil and political
rights until Ukrainians carried out the Orange Revolution in 2004, but that
revolution would not have succeeded had it not been for “the uncompromising
position” of the West which demanded that Kyiv respect democracy or face “very
serious consequences.”

Ukraine also had the advantage,
Vladislav Naganov, an ally of Aleksey Navalny says, both in that “part of the administrative
resource of Ukraine already then was working for the opposition” with the Kyiv
mayor and the heads of some regions backing the opposition and also in that
Ukraine had an independent television (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=52A61D2838D62).

Russia in 2004, five years into the rule
of Vladimir Putin, had none of those advantages. It did not face “uncompromising”
demands with real teeth from the West, it could not count on part of the power
vertical to support the opposition, and television if not the Internet was
already under the tight control of the Kremlin.

In the years since, according to
Naganov, “the development of Russia and Ukraine has gone along different paths.
In Ukraine, for these nine years, there has been “an open and free political
competition, and society is accustomed to these rules. It has been accustomed
to freedom of speech and to an independent media.”

Ukrainian society, Naganov says, has
become accustomed to its right to form whatever political parties it wants and
to nominate candidates of its choice.Elections are not falsified, at least “not so boldly and crudely as in
Russia.”And Ukrainian society “has
become accustomed that it can freely meet on the streets” and no one from the
authorities will try to stop that.

In Russia, in contrast, over this period,
there has been a consistent “tightening of the screws,” the political system
has been transformed” into a desert or a swamp, censorship has triumphed, “and
society also has become accustomed to these rules,” not all of its members but
most.And elections have been falsified
routinely.

“Finally,” Naganov writes, “the
relationship of the European Union and the United States to the authorities of
Russia and Ukraine was and remains different.”The West has continued to make clear demands of the Ukrainians and to
impose real penalties when Kyiv does not meet them; it has not done so in the
case of Russia.And the Kremlin has
become accustomed to that.

Given this difference in treatment, no
one should be surprised that “Putin does everything that he wants on the
territory of the Russian Federation” while “Yanukovich cannot allow himself the
same,” unless of course he no longer cares about the West because of increasing
pressure from Moscow.

That is why there are millions of
demonstrators in Ukraine and only a relative handful in the Russian Federation,
but would that be the case if Ukrainians couldn’t be sure that opposition
deputies would support them, the authorities restrained in moving against them,
their national media open to cover them, and themselves unlikely to be accused
of being “agents of the CIA?”

If Russians could be equally sure of
these things, they would go into the streets in massive numbers as well,
Naganov says.Indeed, those who do so
under current conditions are all the more remarkable.They are showing the way, not only for what
other Russians must do but also what the West must do as well.